Tomorrow Never Comes

When a meteorite is announced to be on a collision course with Earth resulting in an extinction level event, a family facing their last few hours together reflect on everything from fond memories, to missed opportunities all the way up to the meaning of life while they wait for the inevitable.

Tomorrow Never Comes plays out its disaster scenario very much the same way those initial days and weeks did during the pandemic. At first, the meteorite is played down, verified facts are sparse, and people are urged to believe that things aren’t as bad as they seem, keep calm and carry on and all that. But before we know it, things are unimaginable, Press conferences, that feeling of helplessness, uncertainty and frankly disbelief this could be happening at all, Villa makes all those senses of denial, anger and fear we became all too familiar with come flooding back, managing to tap into that indelible way of thinking we’ve all been left with wrapped up in a tightly focused family narrative.

It’s a film with two ideas at play. The first, and the one that really takes front and centre, is that it’s a very poignant yet gloomy think-piece on the sorry state of the world today and the reasons for it being that way, namely us. The film does want to spend a good portion of its hour lamenting the state of the world, the nonsense of social media, the systems and authorities that have failed us, what’s wrong with us as humans and ultimately, that we might just in fact deserve everything we get.

Unfortunately, that often gets in the way of the film's second and to be honest stronger aspect; its compelling character-driven, ultimately human story which rightly keeps wanting to come the fore, even if the film doesn’t always want to let it. Watching Briony and Simon grieve the fact that their best years will never come, while their parents try their best to comfort them in vain is a tough watch, while also seeing their young son enjoy his first beer as the group reveal eye-opening secrets to one another provides some beautiful human moments that are all played out brilliantly by a solid cast who manage to create a family dynamic that for the most part feels the real deal.

The problem is these moments are then overwhelmed at times by over-philosophical monologues that detract from that sense of realism. A last phone call between the family and their solitary grandmother they will never reach in time is undoubtedly the film's standout, I’m-not-crying-you're-crying sequence, but it's almost swept away when the film once again tries to preach its message on the follies of humankind. It’s an understandable aim for Villa to want to get across, but it means less time is spent focusing on these stellar family moments, which is again where the film's better sequences lie.

Tomorrow Never Comes possibly could have focused more on its characters than its message, but there’s a whole lot to love in this film that will make you reflect on what has been, ponder what’s to come but, most importantly, make you feel human.